About the author
Zhang Ping, male, is currently the secretary of the Party organization and the vice president of the China Association for the Development and Service of High-quality Agricultural ProductsWang Na, female, is a doctoral student in the Department of Economics of the ** Party School of the Communist Party of China (National Academy of Administration).
The "China County Economic Development Report 2024" (published by the National Academy of Administration Press), written by experts organized by the Organizing Committee of the China County Economic Development Conference, will be published in the first half of next year. This article is part of chapter VI of the report.
In May 2022, the General Office of the Communist Party of China issued the "Opinions on Promoting Urbanization Construction with County Towns as Important Carriers", clarifying the status of county development in rural revitalization and pointing out the direction of future county development. To this end, the following suggestions are put forward for county economy and rural revitalization.
1. Big agriculture
To realize and develop modern agriculture, we must use more advanced science and technology as a means of production, with the help of a higher level of agricultural machinery and equipment as a means of production, have a higher technology intensity and a higher comprehensive production capacity, and significantly improve agricultural labor productivity, land productivity, and agricultural product commodity rate, thus triggering profound changes in agricultural production, rural outlook, and peasant household behavior. To accelerate the development of modern agriculture, on the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen innovation in agricultural science and technology, further enhance the level of agricultural science and technology, and form new quality productive forces. This includes intensifying the reform of the agricultural science and technology system, improving the incentive mechanism, and breaking through the institutional obstacles to agricultural science and technology innovation. At the same time, it is necessary to increase investment in agricultural science and technology, ensure that investment in agricultural scientific research occupies a priority position in public financial support, and increase the proportion and intensity of investment in agricultural science and technology. On the other hand, it is necessary to vigorously promote agricultural mechanization and intellectualization, and further improve the level of agricultural machinery and equipment. This includes intensifying the implementation of agricultural mechanization projects and introducing more modern large-scale agricultural machinery with world-class standards to realize the full mechanized management and harvesting of major food crops. In order to comprehensively promote the development of modern agriculture, it is necessary to promote scientific and technological innovation, mechanization, intelligence, and digitalization, and ensure sufficient financial and talent support. This will lay a solid foundation for agricultural modernization and promote the overall improvement of the rural economy and society.
Second, high-quality land
On the one hand, it is necessary to strictly guard against the rigid defense of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land, especially to ensure the land used for grain planting, rely on scientific and technological innovation and progress, improve the growth and utilization of land, ensure the good use of fertile land, and enhance the level of sustainable grain production. It is an important task to realize the overall development of urban and rural areas and rural revitalization at the county level by implementing the strictest red lines for cultivated land and permanent basic farmland, water use and ecological protection, strictly prohibiting soil pollution, strengthening soil quality management, improving soil organic matter composition, and promoting land quality, so as to attach importance to the improvement of agricultural productivity, improve the agricultural value chain, extend the agricultural chain, promote rural industrial upgrading, and promote agriculture to drive the agricultural and food system to gradually complete the transformation of efficient and high-quality green direction.
3. High-quality grain
To ensure food security (grain refers to human food and feed grain), stabilize the quantity and quality of grain, and on the premise of ensuring the effective supply of quantity, grain should also be branded. The leaders have repeatedly put forward requirements for strengthening brand building, pointing out that "it is necessary to strengthen brand building, actively strive for brands, and use brands to ensure people's confidence in product quality." ", to promote the transformation of Chinese products into Chinese brands". Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a practical assessment of the quality of the total amount of grain each year, firmly establish the concept of big food, develop food chains other than food crops, innovate the level of food consumption, and strengthen research and exploration of grain consumption. Guided by the effective connection of the development of the big health industry, we should ensure a reasonable and scientific food structure and achieve self-seeking balance between provinces. Ensure that the Chinese's rice bowl is always in the hands of the Chinese, and it is filled with Chinese food.
In the past few decades, China has used limited water and land resources to ensure the food supply of nearly 18% of the world's population**. Institutional innovation, scientific and technological progress and market-oriented reforms at the national level have made significant contributions to improving agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. In the next 30 years, the realization of "absolute security of rations, independent and controllable main agricultural products" is still an important foundation for maintaining the highest level of economic development, but with the change of population and structure and the growth of per capita income, it is necessary for agriculture to strengthen the correlation with upstream and downstream industries on the basis of comprehensively improving quality and efficiency, and driving the transformation of the entire agricultural and food system towards high efficiency, high value and green direction. While continuing to promote institutional innovation, scientific and technological progress and market-oriented reform, we should focus on the advantages and location conditions of regional development, closely follow the law of county development, and promote the realization of agricultural modernization and the transformation of agricultural and food systems. To achieve the goal of improving the quality and efficiency of the agri-food system on the basis of ensuring food security, it is necessary not only to pay attention to it at the national level, but also to establish the awareness of attaching importance to agriculture and serving agriculture at the county level, and to provide institutional, policy and economic support for the transformation of the agri-food system. Ensuring the absolute safety of rations and the independence and controllability of major agricultural products is an important goal of the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.
Fourth, retain people
With the economic and social development, the gap between urban and rural areas has widened, and the number of people who go out to work has increased year by year. The phenomenon of empty shell villages and hollow villages is prominent, jokingly called the 6199 unit stationed in the countryside, and this phenomenon must be reversed, and the tide of going out to work will be turned into a tide of returning to the hometown to start a business. Through the guidance and support of industry and policies, we will guide the reasonable, orderly and scientific return of migrant workers, and establish a scientific and reasonable personnel structure in urban and rural areas. Make the village prosperous and the people prosperous.
Fifth, remember nostalgia
The tree is 1,000 feet high, and the fallen leaves return to the roots. It is necessary to let people who go out to start a business happily return to their homeland, attach importance to the construction between the second hometown and the first hometown, let people remember nostalgia, leave idyllic scenery and good memories, increase the protection, construction and development of rural landmark and characteristic homestay buildings, and build the countryside into a place that is truly desirable. Through years of targeted poverty alleviation and rural construction, the rural landscape has been greatly improved, and agricultural and rural development is in the ascendant. Therefore, it is necessary to make a big fuss about remembering the nostalgic culture, and return to the unique scenery of the village, the protection and application development of traditional villages.
6. Create beauty
The key to rural revitalization is rural construction, the goal of rural construction is to build beautiful villages, and the standard of beautiful countryside refers to the coordinated development of economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization, civilized rural customs, and clean village appearance. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) put forward the general requirements for the construction of a new socialist countryside with 20 characters: "production development, comfortable life, rural customs for the people, clean and tidy villages, and democratic management". The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the 20-character total requirements for rural revitalization, from production development to industrial prosperity, from a comfortable life to a rich life, from a clean village to an ecological livability, from management democracy to effective governance, in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the three rural undertakings will be upgraded with the times under the situation of rapid development, and the strategic requirements of agricultural and rural development have been upgraded with the times, so as to better meet the growing needs of farmers and the masses for a better life, and build a harmonious and beautiful countryside.
Seventh, strong revenue increase
We will unswervingly increase farmers' incomes and achieve common prosperity for all people. In the future, the development of "three rural" needs to strengthen the internal division of labor in agricultural villages to promote the transformation of economic structure, accelerate the narrowing of the gap between industrial and peasant, urban and rural labor productivity, and county development is the key to support the adjustment of agricultural internal structure and create non-agricultural employment, and promote the transformation of economic structure and the integrated development of urban and rural areas. In the past few decades, industrialization and urbanization have brought about a continuous narrowing of the absolute difference between the labor productivity of workers and peasants and between urban and rural areas. In the next 30 years, to fully realize Chinese-style agricultural modernization and common prosperity for all, it is necessary to continue to improve agricultural labor productivity and eliminate the income gap between urban and rural areas. In addition to accelerating the development of urbanization, through the implementation of rural revitalization, it is also necessary to achieve specialized division of labor according to scale and products within agriculture to improve agricultural production efficiency. The development of the county-level economy will not only provide conditions for accelerating urbanization by creating more non-agricultural employment, but also provide conditions for the specialized division of labor within agriculture through the integration of urban and rural resources such as land, labor, and capital. We should use scientific and technological innovation and structural transformation to strengthen the development of nature-based production solutions that combine scientific and technological development. In the practice of carrying out nature-based production solutions and achieving green and sustainable development goals, agricultural modernization should be organically combined with modern biology and digital technology to promote agricultural modernization and sustainable development.
8. Common prosperity
Narrow the income gap between workers and peasants, and between urban and rural areas, and achieve common prosperity for all people. Construct a multi-dimensional market mechanism with the county as the core, gradually narrow the income and social welfare gap between the county and the county, and establish a unified labor market that connects urban and rural, cross-regional, and cross-industryPromote the degree of specialization and division of labor between planting and breeding within agriculture, between large and small farmers within planting, and between different agricultural products in various regions, and improve the degree of industrialization, commercialization, and marketization of agricultural productionEnhance the awareness of serving agriculture, and solve the problem of increasing farmers' income and common prosperity of the whole people through high-value, diversified and personalized development.
Case: Digitization of "Wuchang Rice".
Wuchang City, Heilongjiang Province is a typical agricultural county (city), an important national commodity grain base, one of the top ten advanced counties in grain production in China, and one of the top five rice counties in China. In 2022, the brand value of Wuchang rice climbed to 7102.8 billion yuan, ranking first in the country in the landmark product rice category for seven consecutive years. On the road of polishing the green business card of Wuchang rice, Wuchang City has never stopped exploring and working hard.
Relying on the "science and technology + media + business + industry + ecology" all-round capability matrix of Xinhuanet's traceability China platform, Wuchang County proposed a "people-land-rice-standard" fully networked traceability scheme, binding each plot corresponding to each farmer, and comprehensively tracing the output of the corresponding plot and the planting, purchase, processing, sales and other production links of the corresponding plot, and comprehensively tracing more than 100,000 farmers, more than 6,000 cooperatives, more than 2.4 million mu of paddy fields, more than 700,000 tons of rice, and more than 470 production and processing enterprises. More than 200 sub-packaging enterprises, more than 400 landmark enterprises, more than 90 enterprises above designated size, more than 50 distribution enterprises and other data are entered into the industrial big data platform one by one, which can monitor the industrial operation data in real time and master the digital protection technology means of the Wuchang rice brand.